Scarlet
by Thomas Tom Tom
Summary: The Titans join up with a team of super-powered mercenaries looking to deal with a sensitive problem. If you don't like OCs I would...err...close your eyes when you click on this.
1. Infiltration

**A/N: Hai! This story is something I've had under my hat for a while now but didn't put it up because it wasn't ready.**

**First in a series, the second of which will also come out today. So, get busy, review, have fun, et cetera.**

* * *

**Infiltration**

"So, Cyborg, why did you call us all down here again?" Robin said in a businesslike tone.

"Look out the window. See that tiny speck in the distance?" Cyborg told him.

The Titans looked and saw a minuscule yellow dot to the north of the Tower.

"What is it?" Raven asked.

"It's a crop duster. A crop duster, I might add, on a collision course with our front lawn." Cyborg said tensely.

"We don't have a front lawn." Raven deadpanned.

"Is this really the time?"

"Fair enough. Have you tried to make contact or something yet?" Raven said, gesturing to the massive control panel in the centre of the room.

"Oh. Yeah, I tried. Have a listen to this." Cyborg pressed a button on the panel.

"Unidentified aircraft, you are in Titans Tower airspace. State your identity and intent, if you please." he said into the microphone.

There was a pause, and then the speaker crackled into life.

The Titans waited, listening intently.

Suddenly, the distinct melody of an Eighties rock track (one that Robin identified as "I Can't Wait" by Stevie Nicks – one of Batman's personal favourites) played loudly through the room. Cyborg let a minute or two pass as the song played out, then repeated itself.

"Wow, they have Stevie Nicks. Such nefarious villains." Raven drawled. Robin grinned, both at the joke and the absurdity of Raven's knowledge of such a concept as Stevie Nicks.

"Ha ha ha. That's all I get when I try to talk to the plane. That and Greg Kihn."

Robin and Raven flat out laughed, while Cyborg stood incensed and Starfire and Beast Boy obviously had no idea what was going on.

"Why don't we just send someone out to intercept them?" Robin said, after recovering his composure. "That would be much easier."

Cyborg facepalmed. "Didn't think of that. Star, BB, why don't y'all go and speak to this crop duster pilot, before he crashes into us?"

Starfire and Beast Boy returned some time later, having both landed the plane (Beast Boy, it turned out, could actually fly a plane) and taken the pilot down to the medbay.

The pilot they recovered was a tall mid-20s looking boy, with brown, black and white hair gelled up at the front. He wore a black armoured jacket with white fur shoulderpads and a white fur collar, black trousers, white gloves with white fur around the tops and black fingertips, and white fur-topped boots with black buckles. Hanging off his belt were two holsters which contained two matching custom Walther pistols.

The symbol on both his belt and the left side of his jacket showed something resembling an Omega letter with an inverted triangle in the middle.

"Have you seen his hair?" Beast Boy asked Robin. "It looks like fur off a tortoiseshell cat. And he has _whiskers. _Tell me that's not normal."

Cyborg couldn't find any trace of a heartbeat, and he concluded the boy was dead. His neck was broken. So the Titans buried the boy on their island, marked with a simple stone which read "The Pilot."

* * *

A week later, a bored Beast Boy was in the training room, because when he was bored he needed to either punch something or play a ridiculously complex prank on someone, and the first option was safer.

As he was punching the stuffing out of a handy punching bag, a jet black rappel line came down from the ceiling to hang just above him.

The only time he noticed anything wrong was when long locks of fiery orange hair slipped over his eyes and he found himself face to face with a see-through rebreather covering full red lips and startling green eyes.

The air in the room suddenly got very hot.

There was a sharp pain in the back of his neck, the girl blew him a kiss and then Beast Boy blacked out.

Cyborg was in the garage, polishing his car as usual, when all the power in the garage went off.

He got up off his knees and readied his sonic cannon, pointing it at shadows while his night-vision eye scanned the room. A crackling noise behind him alerted him to the presence of someone else and he span around, to meet a lightning bolt which hit him in the chest.

His systems crashed, and all he could do was watch as the lights turned back on, and a mousy-haired individual in a suit covered with lightning bolt motifs wearing welding goggles said "Sorry about this" apologetically and smashed him over the head with a large spanner, knocking him out cold.

Starfire tended to frequent the gardens when unoccupied with anything, and that was where she found herself now.

She stopped in front of an evidently freshly dug and re-filled hole with an odd metal flower planted nearby. No one had been down here besides her, so who could this have been?

Her musings were interrupted when a fist smashed its way out of the hole and a dirt covered man in an organic-looking suit dragged himself from the ground, turned his right arm into a huge metal hammer and hit her with the force of an express train into the wall.

She watched as the man touched the metal flower with a fingertip and it seemed to melt and drip upwards into his hand. Then he turned to her, gravely intoned "This'll hurt...a lot", roughly pushed her head into the floor, and she saw nothing else.

Raven hid herself in her room most of the time, and was only seen out of it either at night, when no one was around, or when Robin called her out of it for something or other.

She was leafing through one of her many spellbooks when Robin's voice (definitely Robin's, although it sounded a bit mechanical) said through the door "Excuse me, Rae, but, I needed to talk to you about something. Privately. About us."

"_About us?" What __**is**__ he talking about? _Raven thought. She got up and pressed the button to open her door, and was faced with not Robin, but a dull blue mask with a white visor.

"Fooled you!" it said, laughing a very feminine and musical laugh, and fired two earsplitting blasts of sound at Raven, sending her flying back into her room. The sound girl danced over to Raven, and before she could summon any form of counter-attack, shot a very high pitched noise from her gauntlets that made Raven feel very dizzy. "Oh, damn, have you got it bad. It's almost poetic." she commented, perching happily on Raven's bed. "Oh, silly me, you're still awake. Whoops."

The girl carelessly sent a wave of noise which smashed Raven's head on the wall, and Raven fell to the ground unconscious.

Robin heard the strange noises from Raven's room, and, deciding she probably wasn't really into dubstep, went up to investigate.

Just at the end of the hall he was presently on, he found an almost invisible tripwire which he carefully stepped over.

He then took a fist to the face from a girl in a grey cloak, standing upside down on the ceiling. She casually pushed a bit of blonde hair off of her green goggles and dropped down from the ceiling, landing gracefully in front of him. Still dazed, he barely even noticed when she shot him in the face with a black gun, bright blue lights along the barrel, and he fell asleep.


	2. Cats Have Nine Lives

**A/N: Second part of this fic, which is epic. **

**Warning: Throughout this fic Cat will be constantly borderline racist and a bit posh. Stop reading if you hate stereotypes.**

**... are you all gone? Good. If you're still here, then review, and read and et cetera.**

* * *

**Cats Have Nine Lives**

Robin opened his eyes and saw the Ops room filled with people he didn't recognise. He tried to move his arms, and found they were bound to the floor by a solid piece of metal.

Starfire, sitting next to him in the same situation, vainly tried to break or bend the metal, but had little effect.

Suddenly, a large bucket of water was emptied over all of the comatose Titans' heads.

"Oh, you're already awake. Sorry." the waterbearer giggled into her hand.

"Oh, Reverb, just wake them up and let's get this over with." the grey-cloaked girl said, in a strong English accent. She wore blocky white body armour over her chest, arms and knees, and flaunted flared combat trousers and Splinter Cell-esque three-eyed goggles. Her blonde hair was tied in a simple ponytail.

"Reverb" stood up and carelessly dropped the bucket on the floor.

Robin examined the girl with his typical exquisite detail.

She was not over five foot eleven, and wore a sleek, futuristic-looking navy blue armour, with large speakers mounted in her gauntlets, boots, and there were two even larger ones mounted on her shoulders. Her wrists had numerous sliders and dials reminiscent of those on a DJ's console, along with bars of LEDs across her shouderguards and on her outer thighs. On her white belt there was that strange Omega symbol again, and four buttons (rewind, pause, play, fast forward) which glowed purple. Her full face helmet had two aerials on the left and right sides, and the thin white visor extended a little down where her nose would have been.

She turned around. "Blades, Flare, they're ready for you!" she called over to the five other people in the room, and two of them, one male, one female, walked over.

The man walked with longer strides and heavier footfalls, as if he was made of something incredibly heavy. He kept his head facing straight forward, like a soldier on parade, and his mouth was turned in a grimace.

He wore a black suit which looked like it was made of living material; it appeared grown rather than made. With long spiked shoulderpads and clawed gauntlets, boots and greaves, his armour seemed to shift and grow with every movement he made. His black helmet covered his hair and his eyes were masked by a blue visor, and scratchy stubble reached over his chin.

The girl, on the other hand, was wearing a yellow and red high-collared boiler suit with the arms cut out and a plunging neckline. Tall black gloves which reached up to her elbows curiously had the palms and fingertips cut out. A black harness held a large orange tank (proudly stating "DANGER: HOT" in white capitals), from which tubes snaked out to feed into the transparent oxygen mask she wore. Her boots, also black, had large wedge heels and small orange bulges on the side.

Her hair hung free, but it was a remarkable shade of crimson which as it flowed, looked a little like it was a raging fire.

"Meet Blades and Flareup!" Reverb said brightly, pointing to each in turn. "They're actually really nice, except Blades, who's a bit of a downer on everything, but you'll just love them. Really."

Blades held up his right hand and the same shiny metal which currently held the Titans captive flowed down his arm and shaped itself into a wicked-looking blade. He swirled it around impressively then scraped it along the ground menacingly.

"Screw the broody shit, Blades." Flareup said, then launched herself at Raven.

"TALK! Where's the Cat? Where is he?" she yelled, her beautiful green eyes lighting up orange and her hair physically bursting into flame. Raven recoiled from the intense heat.

"There's a dead person we found in a crop duster, he's buried outside, if he's this cat...?" she said hurriedly, as the flames got closer to her. Flareup immediately smiled, her hair went out and her eyes returned to normal.

"That wasn't so hard, was it? Blades, put the knife away and let them up."

Blades growled and the metal making up both his blade and the impromptu handcuffs sliding back up his body into his chest area, where it disappeared.

The Titans warily stood up.

Blades wordlessly took off towards the doors. The rest followed, Robin questioning constantly how he knew where to go.

* * *

The ten of them stood around the grave.

"Well, he would have liked the gravestone, at least." Flareup commented quietly.

"I'm digging him up." Blades said abruptly, already forming a shovel and starting to dig.

"What? Are you insane?" Beast Boy squawked.

"Probably." the grim faced man said, digging deeper into the hole.

The shovel hit the wood of a coffin, and Blades scraped the remaining soil off the lid, before wrenching it off and throwing it aside.

"Cat" lay there, eyes shut in that irrevocably peaceful slumber of death.

The girl in the grey cloak pushed Blades out of the way and bent down over the body.

"Yep," the grey-cloaked girl said, moving the dead pilot's head from left to right carefully, "he's dead as a doornail."

Blades hmphed. "Electron. Zap him."

The mousy-haired teenager in the lightning bolt-covered suit rubbed his hands together, then snapped his fingers, causing two large balls of electricity to spark into being in his palms.

He held his hands out towards the pilot and the electricity jumped across into his chest.

The pilot sat bolt upright and then opened his eyes. He swallowed a few times.

"Oh, you're _all_ here." he said, noticing the audience to his resurrection. The Titans were all staring open-mouthed.

He looked down. "Ooh. _Legs. _Yeess. That's a good sign."

Putting a hand over his head, he muttered "I can buy a fez." and pulled himself out of the pit.

"Cat, you okay?" Grey-cloaked girl said in a businesslike tone.

"Positively splendid, Silhouette darling." he said, cracking his broken neck back into the correct position. "Now, I trust you didn't hurt the Titans too much?"

Cyborg raised his hand. "Uh, we're right here, y'all."

"Cat" span on his heel to face him. "Right. Yes you are. Right. We have to talk. Properly. Before you get the wrong idea. Again."

* * *

"So why did you fly a dead guy here in a plane then infiltrate the Tower and take us all out anyway?" Beast Boy said confusedly, when they were all seated around the conference table.

"We wanted your attention, of course!" Reverb said melodiously. "How else were we to get your help?"

"You could have just asked." Raven pointed out.

"That's no fun."

"Can you at least introduce yourselves?" Robin tried.

"Certainly. I am the Cat." Cat said with a flourish. "Indestructible feline half breed of death and poker."

He pointed at the monosyllabic man.  
"This is Blades, my clone-brother-person, the man made of living vanadium-titanium alloy. Not a good man to aggravate, because he will hound you till the end of time."

"Silhouette. The darling British invisible girl." Cat gestured to Grey-Cloak.

"Our one and only human sound amplifier with a dubstep fixation, Reverb."

"Electron, a walking light socket with eleven hard science PhDs and a brain the size of the moon."

Robin suddenly noticed Electron was lacking a right arm, and used a mechanical one in its place. He was currently tapping with his animatronic digits at a holographic screen projected from his bulky left gauntlet. His shoulderpads sat snugly over both his arms, and his chest was armoured with a single bluish metal plate, linked with his belt and hip armour by two lightning bolts. His boots had what appeared to be hoverjets installed in them, judging by the way he floated around the room, poking at various computer systems.

Cat put a small flash drive Electron handed him into the computer and projecting a larger version of the Omega symbol on all of their belts, shoulders or chestplates onto the large screen. At this large size, all of the Titans could clearly see it was comprised of an S, a backwards S, and a small triangle in the middle of the two.

"We are the Scarlet Strikers, superpowered mercenaries to the rich, idiotic and philanthropic. And we need your help with something. Something big. Amazingly big."

* * *

**A/N: Musics! Themes I used for writing these OCs:**

**Cat - "Smooth Operator" by Sade**

**Blades - "Calling" by Strung Out**

**Flareup - "Tigerlily" by La Roux**

**Reverb - "Revive" by enV**

**Electron - "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins**

**Silhouette - "Don't Tell Me That It's Over" by Amy Macdonald**

**Have a listen and see what you think. I like to think the Strikers' demeanor reflects their song. What about you?**


	3. Training and A Girly Conversation

**A/N: A third part for you. Even if you are completely ignoring this fic. Oh well.  
**

**On the topic of Blades' powers, they're like the powers of James Heller from the [Prototype 2] game. The weapon he uses in the second part is basically just the Whipfist.**

**Strychnine is a real chemical. Creepy, right? **

**Review if you haven't been scared off by this yet. Oh, and Robin is going to get a little bit irritated with the Strikers' methods later on. Just a heads up.**

* * *

**Training and a Girly Conversation**

"Behold," Cat said magnanimously, "the Greenfields Initiative."

He pulled up a slowly revolving image of three immense glass domes.

"It's like the British Eden Project, except American and therefore evil."

"Cat, love," Silhouette sighed. "can you actually tell them why we're going to blow the place up and be less, you know, racist?"

"Tcha, fine." Cat sniffed. "They're in the business of creating easily grown seeds for developing countries. Work closely with the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines."

He pulled up another file, this one of some form of seed. "This is project X022, super fast growing rice. However," he said, bringing up an enlarged shot of one of the DNA strains of this particular plant, "they've introduced the DNA strains of strychnos seeds."

He gave the Titans a sideways look. "Strychnos seeds, by the way, contain strychnine, which is a lovely little chemical that stimulates the nerves in a victim's body, stretching their face into a giant grin while they die in horrific agony." He clapped his hands in Robin's direction. "Sound familiar?"

Robin nodded. "Joker gas contains the chemical. So it's a pretty safe bet he's behind this?"

"Right you are. Anyway, we've been paid a rather tidy amount of scratch to stop production of X022, and since we don't exactly have the firepower to take on a target as well defended as this place is sure to be, we sort of need some minor backup."

"So what're we waiting for? Let's fire up the T-Jet and fly out there!" Beast Boy said, jumping to his feet.

"Hold the phone my lad, you a) have no idea where to go, and b) you've never seen combat with us before and we'd get in each other's way." Cat told him. Robin nodded.

Blades cracked his neck. "You got a training room?"

* * *

"_Training room activated. Level Five." _Cyborg's voice echoed over the white room. The Scarlet Strikers all stretched, flexed and got into a combat stance (Cat standing as nonchalantly as if he was on the promenade on a sunny day).

Two wall panels folded up and large sentry turrets popped out of the walls.

"Blades, cover!" Silhouette shouted, and Blades smashed his fist into the floor, building a low metal wall that all the Strikers crouched behind.

Silhouette took two compact submachine guns from her back and threw one to Cat, who put it into a holster on his back and drew a short tanto from across his other shoulder.

A few complex hand signals from Cat and then he and Blades leapt over the cover, Blades creating a large metal whip and spinning it to deflect bullets from the sentry guns. Meanwhile Cat sprinted across behind him, wallran a few steps up to the left sentry, and neatly sliced it in half. When he dropped to the floor Blades cracked his whip and then threw the hooked blade on the end into the other gun, smashing right through it and putting it out of action.

The rest of the Strikers vaulted the low metal barricade, which melted onto the floor and seeped back into Blades, as five "borrowed" Slade-bots were elevated through the floor.

Electron ran up to the closest one and delivered a lightning-powered punch through the chest with his left arm, pulling out a battery unit and crushing it, his eyes sparking for a few seconds.

As he did this, Silhouette vanished and then reappeared behind another, machine-gunning it in the legs to make it fall over, then kicked the head off and into another one which toppled over. Flareup took over where she had left off and fired a searing gout of flame from the palms of her hands which made the metal armour on the Slade-bot bubble and melt, until it lay in a pool of molten steel on the floor.

Reverb pushed all the sliders on her gauntlets up to max and then fired ear-shattering bursts of bass at the two remaining robots, flinging them off their feet and into the wall, where she held them until she fired further shots of drums and piano which tore them to pieces, seemingly dictating the melody of the music with little movements of her fingers.

Two more appeared, one using a holographic inducer to display a human figure.

Cat drew his Walthers and peppered the first with silenced rounds until it collapsed, riddled with holes. He reloaded by popping the spent clips out, throwing the guns in the air, taking out fresh clips and throwing them up into the airborne guns, then caught them, span them on his middle fingers, and slid them effortlessly into their holsters.

Robin watched Blades approach the "human" enemy.

He had to look away when a huge blade sliced the "man" in half, spurting hologrammatic blood all over the arena.

Blades dusted himself off with his left (not sword) hand, and deconstructed the immense sword. "Any casualties?" he asked.

Cat coughed and spat out a .50 hard point sentry gun bullet. "I may have had a smallish hole in my windpipe, but it's healed up now. That reminds me, who's got my defib unit?"

Electron slapped his forehead. "Knew I forgot something." he exclaimed, fixing a slimline grey box to Cat's back.

"What was that for?" Cyborg asked as he jogged up to inspect the damage done to his beautiful training arena.

"If I die, this restarts my heart. I took it off so you'd buy my fake death." Cat explained.

Robin walked up. "So maybe you've got a few issues here and there, like killing people, but otherwise I can work with you." he said to Blades. "You guys are good."

"You do tend to be, to make a living off this kind of thing." Reverb chirped happily.

Electron yawned. "It's eleven at night, guys. Are we good for wheels-up at oh-nine-hundred?"

Robin shrugged. "We can leave whenever you're ready, but I don't know about you guys. Grab someplace to sleep, and we'll discuss it more tomorrow."

The Strikers headed off outside the Tower to something they called the Stratowing.

Raven was tapped on the shoulder. "Hm?" she asked, turning around to Silhouette's creepy three-eye goggles.

"Can I stay in your tower? Like, sleep on your couch?" she asked. "Not that I'm meaning to intrude or anything, but I can't sleep in that bloody plane another night."

"Why are you asking me? I'm the quiet antisocial one." Raven said, raising an eyebrow.

"So am I." Silhouette replied, a smile twitching at her lips. "So, what about it? I promise I won't cloak and read your diary or whatever!"

Raven laughed quietly, shook her head, and agreed.

* * *

Raven went up onto the roof of the Tower around two in the morning, and found Silhouette.

"Raven. How's the night for you?" she asked.

"Constantly interrupted with Robin broadcasting his thoughts." Raven replied.

"Ah, so you're a telepath?"

"Empath."

"Same difference."

"Basically." Raven agreed, sitting down next to the Brit.

"Bloody hell, I hate this secret identity thing, especially at night." she said, looking over to Raven. "Can we just get rid of the codenames and talk like normal people?"

Raven didn't see any reason why not. "Sure."

Silhouette smiled, pulled off her goggles and shook her blonde hair out of its ponytail. She stuck out a hand. "Hi, I'm Rebecca Fisher. You can call me Becky, if you want."

Raven put her hood down, took the offered hand and shook it. "Rachel Roth. Rae."

"Alright, friends?" Becky said.

"Friends."

"Thank god for that. If you'd've said no, it would have made this really awkward."

"Probably." Raven replied and they both laughed.

"Reverb – her name's Kim, by the way – says she's sorry for wubbing your head to buggery yesterday night."

"It was okay. What got me was the fact she used Robin's voice to do it."

Becky's jaw dropped. "What?! She actually didn't!"

"She did."

"Damn, that was Plan B for taking you out if you attacked us."

"You made plans to take us all down? Well now I feel trusted."

Becky laughed. "Cat and Blades' ideas. They basically used the most scummy tactics ever – they were going to tie Beast Boy up and roll him in pâté to make him surrender."

Raven smirked a bit. "What was Starfire's?"

"Throw the moth larvae out a window."

"That's a bit mean."

"We're mercenaries, mean is like our middle names." Becky pointed out. "Blades thought up the plan for Robin, though. Serious dark stuff."

"Well, I'm interested. How were you going to get Robin to wave the proverbial white flag?"

"Blades has this massive .50 Magnum revolver he carries around on his belt. He figured if he loaded one shot into it, span it up Russian Roulette style, and held you at gunpoint Robin'd cave. Like I said, dark stuff. It's from his time as an assassin."

"Really?" Raven asked, awestruck.

"Really." Becky confirmed. "Because it's totally obvious that you two are way beyond colleagues."

"It is not and we are."

Becky giggled. "God, you're hilarious. This is the man who physically punched out Satan because he took you away. You're so into him."

"I am not."

"Really? Not even with the charming smile, selfless heroics, intense dedication and well fit body?"

"Well, maybe a little bit."

"Got you! Knew it! Ha ha." Becky gloated, leaning back.

"Well, let's focus on your love life. What's with you and Cat?"

"It's a little hard going out with an immortal cat thing, I will say that."

"Your teeth are almost as pointed as his." Raven noted.

"That's because, and don't tell anyone this, he injected a little drop of his blood into me after I took a sniper round to the chest. I healed. I still heal, but way, way slower than Cat, and a million times slower than Blades, who heals instantly. In fact I think I'll probably live as long as them, too."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's put it this way, Blades was around in the Cold War, and he's still 20."

"So he, what, doesn't age?" Raven asked, intrigued.

"Nah, he ages, just _reeally _slowly. I think a year is like four minutes in Blades time."

"Wow, your team is weird." Raven voiced the thought which had been running around her head for at least two minutes now.

"No weirder than yours. At least we don't have any aliens."

"Do you have an Atlantean?"

"Yep. And ohmygosh, how hot are they?" Becky asked conspiratorially.

"Very." Raven laughed. "Ours is better looking though, I bet you."

"Probably. Our is missing an eye and a hand, and he has a scary fascination with water-borne explosives."

"I think I've already mentioned how crazy your team is."

"Well, we'll see in the morning. Oh, and you are totally coming with me. I like you." Becky said, pulling her goggles back on and smirking.

Raven pushed her hood up. "I don't mind you either, even if your accent is completely hilarious."

"Bite your tongue!" Silhouette said, and vanished.

* * *

**The Atlantean mentioned in this chapter may appear at a later date. Maybe. If you guys want him in there. BUT YOU HAVE TO BLOODY TELL ME, DAMMIT!**


	4. Mine's Better, Just Saying

**A/N: Yeah, I know no-one wants to read this over RTJ, but tough. **

**BIGGEST CHAPTER EVER - OVER 2200 WORDS WTF**

**Oh and all of the THREE people who REVIEWED are god(esses?) and as such get their Atlantian, because literally all of you said it'd be cool.**

**SELF INSERT GUESS WHO I AM OMG IT'S SO HARD! **

**Alright, calm. Read and please, please, please, please review this. Hell if you only read it it'd still be great, because I'm currently sitting at one hundred and twenty views, two favourites and one follow, and I think I'm going to cry. (Okay, not really.) Even if you want to say it's bad, then bloody well SAY IT! I am a man and can handle such emotional turmoil as haters. Geez.**

**Oh yeah, the story. Here you go. I don't own musics. At all.**

* * *

**Mine's Better, Just Saying**

In the morning, Raven rubbed her eyes and tiredly floated down to the common room, where every Scarlet Striker had somehow appeared during the night.

"So where exactly is this Stratowing of yours?" Cyborg was asking Electron. "And what even is the thing?"

"Currently? It's about half a mile below sea level just off shore." Electron replied. "It's the greatest jet ever created."

"Ah, no, I bet my T-Jet could blow it outta the water." Cyborg challenged. Electron snorted.

Silhouette beckoned Raven over and slid her goggles up her face. "Hey Rae. The "Leaders" are just discussing when we're leaving. And by discussing I mean they're arguing."

"Of course." Raven sighed and sat down on the sofa. "Do you want to separate them, or should I?"

"I'll do it. I need the amusement."

Raven watched with a fair amount of said amusement as the British girl disappeared then reappeared between the Cat and Robin and steadily pushed their heads apart.

"Okay, Strikers, Titans, we are going down to get the plane, and then we are going to take it from there, all right?" she announced, as Robin and Cat turned their backs on each other and walked (Robin stomped angrily, and Cat managed to flounce in a way that didn't compromise his masculinity) to opposite sides of the room, before they realised that their teams were both going out of the door and hurriedly fell into step beside them.

Robin was beside Raven. Which was annoying.

"Can you get a read on any of them?" he asked.

"Reverb has too much noise in her head; Cat's too crazy; Electron has a load of static or something in his brain; Blades _doesn't have _emotions, as far as I can tell; Flareup's mind is _flirting _with me; and I like Silhouette too much to intrude in her head." Raven replied.

"Figures. Star and BB like Reverb because she's happy. Cyborg and Electron are already science bros, and I," Robin admitted grudgingly, "may have some slight admiration for Cat and Blades' tactical skills."

Raven crossed her arms. "But you still don't trust them."

"They don't trust us."

"Silhouette trusts me." Raven said, shrugging. "She told me her name and everything."

"Yeah, but you told her your name too, so that point is moot."

"You are such a stalker."

"Whatever, we're at the shore." Robin said evasively, and jogged up to the beach where Silhouette was tapping at a communicator and Cat was scuffing at the sand. Raven followed.

"Can you bring the jet up or not, Depthcharge?" the girl was telling someone-or-other on the communicator.

"Apologies, my lady, but I am being tailed by one of Orin's _puppets_." the communicator spat back in gruff, angry voice.

"Orin's puppets? Cat, nasal scan. What d'you smell?" Silhouette said, immediately businesslike.

Cat inhaled through his nose deeply, then coughed. "Well, short range I can smell Raven's lipstick: hmm, blueberry, how exotic; the lovely scent of wet dog, which I assume is Beast Boy; fire; salt, et cetera." he commented. Raven rubbed the back of her head awkwardly at Robin's curious look.

Silhouette rolled her eyes. "_Seriously, _Cat."

"Fish. Explosives...well, that must be Depthcharge...but there's someone else down there. Definitely a water-dweller."

Suddenly Robin's communicator burst into life. He opened it and Aqualad's worried face appeared on the screen.

"Robin! There's a huge jet down here, a couple hundred metres off shore, guarded by a _known Atlantian criminal! _Are you guys okay, because this guy's seriously – by Neptune, what the hell's that thin-"

The transmission cut out as the largest explosion Raven had ever seen went off in the water somewhere in front of them, spray shooting thousands of feet into the air.

"Jesus Christ, Depthcharge! I said no killing the Titans!" Cat berated his communicator.

"I did not kill him, landstrider, as much as I should have liked to." the gruff voice replied. "I shall bring the fool to surface immediately."

Minutes later a tarnished gold helmet broke the surface of the water, and a man built like a tank walked out of the surf, carrying Aqualad and unceremoniously dumping him on the sand.

The new arrival was almost seven feet tall, and wore archaic, tarnished gold fish-scale armour, with three holes in the chest which were spaced enough to be an old wound from a weapon such as a trident.

_Aquaman carries a trident_, Robin thought.

The armour should have extended into a chainmail skirt, but this had been ripped apart and was now only a few straggly lines of chain which extended halfway down the man's thigh.

His legs were coated in the smooth black waterproof fabric that Aqualad wore, but two tall gold greaves with images of sea monsters embossed onto them covered his lower legs. On his feet were boots made of a matte black metal with stripes of gold.

His belt was festooned with circular explosives of all sizes, from hand grenades to modern smart mines.

The helmet lacked a left eye-hole, but the other one revealed a burning orange stare. The crest reminded Robin of a sailfish's fin, serrated and tall, while the cheekpieces covered the man's face and instead had images of a beard made of an octopus' tentacles.

The most striking thing about this "Depthcharge" (for that was evidently the man's name) was his lack of a left hand, and instead he had a huge harpoon blade seated in a golden stump.

Depthcharge idly kicked some water onto Aqualad's face, and the boy woke up, coughing.

"Robin! ...hang on, who are these guys?" he spluttered, surveying the scene.

"They're a mercenary group we're helping. You just met their naval division." Robin replied, and pulled Aqualad to his feet.

"Naval division? That's Octanus A'kar! Ex-Atlantian army, they kicked him out after he punched out King Orin and blew up the palace."

"It was misunderstanding." Depthcharge shrugged. "I only blew up half of palace."

"Same difference?" Aqualad retorted in shock.

"Okay, okay, life stories later. Plane?" Flareup interrupted, cocking an eyebrow at Depthcharge.

"Of course." the Atlantian said, turning to the sea and pushing a button on his belt.

A few seconds later a big, silver-white jet burst out of the ocean, flew towards the shore and then lay in the water a few metres away.

"Plane." Depthcharge declared.

"Shall we?" Cat asked, indicating the plane.

"We shall." Robin replied.

"Wait, we have to swim there?" Beast Boy interrupted.

* * *

Swimming there wasn't so bad. Raven, Beast Boy and Starfire just flew over, sat on the boarding ramp and watched the rest.

Robin, of course, had an inflatable one-man boat _in his belt_, so he just rowed over, then packed up the boat like nothing had happened.

Blades just jumped, landing hard on the wing of the jet and then walking along the fuselage until he found the door. Raven got out of the way, as she wasn't keen on being crushed by eight hundred pounds of muscle and metal.

The two Atlantians swam, each keeping one eye one each other and the other on the other's team.

Electron powered up his boot jets and hovered slowly over the bay until he could land on the boarding ramp and walk up. Flareup followed him, though her method was somewhat more _hot_: she fired huge gouts of flame out of her palms, boiling the water below and almost setting Starfire's hair on fire before Raven pulled her out of the way.

Reverb's boots fired millions of decibels into the ground, making her float over, but she considerately turned off the sound before she was over Star and Raven, saving them a trip to a hospital for deafness.

Silhouette swam sedately across, her goggles over her face, pulling herself up onto the boarding ramp with Raven's proffered hand, then laughed at Cat's dallying, shook her head, and disappeared inside.

Cat looked at the water for a full minute, then huffed, took a small joystick from his coat pocket, and physically moved the plane up and fifteen metres to the left, until it was hovering just above him.

Electron handed Raven a black rope, saying "Just throw that over the side, will you?" which she did, then Cat clipped a thing on his belt to it and zipped up the line with a whirring noise.

"Could you have picked a more roundabout way to get on board?" Silhouette asked Cat from her co-pilot's seat.

Cat snorted. "I'm not getting _wet_. What do you think I am, a _dog?_"

He sat down in the pilot's seat, put some headphones on, flicked a few switches on the control panel in front of him, pushed a button marked T.O.M. and then pushed the throttle all the way forward.

The Stratowing shot into the air and soon the Titans Tower was a tiny speck in the distance. Cat levelled the plane out and cut speed to half, then pushed the T.O.M. button again.

He reached up and pushed another button on the higher-up panels. The opening bars of Cascada's "Every Time We Touch" filled the plane, until he pressed the button again, grumbling about "bloody Julie screwing with my plane."

This time, some screaming chords from Guns 'n Roses played. Cat pushed the button again.

"This Is The Life" by Amy Macdonald. Cat pushed the button again, earning a dirty look from Silhouette who had been nodding her head in time to the beat.

The music flicked from dubstep to metal to classic rock, back to metal, went on a bit of a tangent with some Irish violins, decided it liked dubstep again, played some Pavarotti just to screw with everyone, and then Cat hit his head off of the dashboard.

"God dammit, TOM, just give me my George Michael _for once_." he nearly wept.

The radio seemed to consider this for a minute, then the smooth saxophone of "Careless Whisper" filled the plane and Cat leaned back.

"Thank you, you useless, infuriating plane."

Raven - who was sitting in a chair across from Reverb, who was playing with her gauntlet settings - asked her companion what TOM was.

"Oh, TOM's the autopilot. He likes to mess with Cat."

"He?" Raven raised an eyebrow.

"TOM's an AI Electron built. He runs the autopilot, flies the plane when we're not around, and he gives us intel and things when we're in the field. Electron says he's based off a guy who was in his Physics class at school."

"So TOM's an acronym? What's it stand for?" Raven asked.

"Tactical Overview Module or something. If you wanted to know more you should ask Electron. He's way better at that stuff than me. I just built the radio." Reverb replied. "I think he's in the back with Cyborg, being sciencey. Come on, I'll show you!" she giggled.

* * *

Electron and Cyborg were indeed in the back of the plane, racing some little flying drones around the room while someone else watched.

Reverb ducked under one effortlessly and then cleared her throat.

"K. How's it going?" Electron asked her.

"Oh, we're going unsecret now? Okay." Reverb asked, a little surprised.

"Well, Cat said we're good for unmasking, but it was definitely Boss-Woman's idea."

The two Strikers laughed. "Sorry, it's a bit of an in joke." Electron explained. "I'm Alexander, by the way. This is Kimberly."

Reverb's helmet hissed. She lifted it off and put it on the small table, frowning. "I wanted to introduce _myself, _Xander." she said, hitting him on the shoulder.

"Vic. That's Rachel. And is the inside joke how Cat's probably the most whipped guy on the planet except Robin?" Cyborg replied.

Raven turned on Cyborg irritatedly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Besides the totally obvious fact that you and the colourful one are probably the most shipped thing in that little tower you inhabit?" the "other person" asked, checking his nails.

"Ah...uh...who are you again?" Raven asked, thrown.

"This is TOM's holoform. Just, you know, if he ever comes out with weird fanfiction references, that's a minor glitch in his programming I haven't been able to fix. There's also a mistake in his personality coding which makes him more English than actual English people, so don't be too offended by that." Alexander explained.

"It is not a mistake, it is providence at work." TOM said snootily. His red-haired holographic self wore a green jacket and a pair of black trousers, and ridiculously shiny Cuban heeled boots. "Don't ever change it."

"I _can't, _you disabled my access to your personality drives!" Alexander retorted. "And your appearance settings!"

"With good reason. You can't modify perfection." the AI replied.

Cyborg elbowed Alexander gleefully. "At least my jet doesn't sass me at any given opportunity."

Alexander shot him a grin. "Oh-ho-ho, but does it have a snazzy holographic body?"

Kim tapped Raven on the shoulder and nodded at the bickering pair. "Let's go, unless you like contained explosions."

Raven snickered and stepped out of the door.

* * *

On reaching the cabin, she suddenly noticed something.

"Kim, your hair is blue."

"Yeah, it is. That's you just realising now? Ugh, I feel so ignored." Kim replied in mock despair. "I used to have blue highlights, but I went on an underwater op and some water got in the suit, the dye sort of ran, and now I have navy blue hair. You know your hair's purple, right?"

Raven touched her own hair, laughing. "Sometimes I forget, and people stop me in street wanting to know how I got my hair like that."

"Born with it?" Kim asked.

"How'd you know?" Raven said, surprised.

"Your eyebrows are the same colour. Okay, hair-dye-girl friend, let's go annoy Blades!"

Raven sighed. "Why do I get the feeling this won't end well?"


End file.
